Gallows effigy of Adams a suspected hate crime

Posted By: July 12, 2014

Irish News (belfast). Saturday, July 12, 2014POLICE were investigating a suspected hate crime last night after an effigy of Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams was placed on a bonfire hanging from a gallows.The apparent representation of Mr Adams wearing a Celtic jersey appeared on a bonfire in the loyalist Ballycraigy estate in Antrim town.Mr Adams described it as “deeply offensive and a clear hate crime” and said he had asked his solicitor to report the matter to the PSNI.A racist banner on the same bonfire said loyalists didn’t want ‘cotton picking n****s’ in their town.Officers are also investigating the desecration of a statue of Our Lady in west Belfast.The statue on a roundabout on the Falls Road was destroyed.The Orange Order has said it will today mobilise in an unprecedented manner in an attempt to prevent violence as thousands of loyalists take to the streets for the biggest day of the marching calendar.Protest parades will take place across the north as further details of the unionist ‘graduated response’ to the banning of the return leg of the Crumlin Road parade were revealed.At a press conference in Belfast City Hall yesterday deputy grand master of the Orange Order Spencer Beattie said: “One stone thrown would under-mine the commitment and dedication of the many thousand who have supported our cause”.Meanwhile, Belfast city centre shops are unlikely to ever open again on the Twelfth after today, The Irish News has learned.Such has been their paltry takings in the six years of Twelfth opening that some traders have privately admitted the experiment was a mistake.Four out of every five Belfast stores welcomed shoppers on the first year of Twelfth trading but that number has dwindled as customers stayed away.Asked about performance, one trader said: “Think of the worst trading Monday and divide it by three.”

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